Exposing Hunter Biden: Our Battle Against his Deceit

Supervisory Special Agent Gary Shapley and Special Agent Joseph Ziegler are long-time IRS employees who have come forward as whistleblowers to accuse the agency of allowing Hunter Biden to evade serious tax charges. They explain their reasons for wanting to be a part of a civil suit filed by the president’s son against the IRS in order to defend what the government won’t.

Like most whistleblowers, we did not decide to start a fight overnight.

We simply tried to carry out our responsibilities as usual, even in the face of growing resistance from a system that did not want to treat the president’s son like any other taxpayer.

The foundation of our tax system requires that everyone be treated equally.

Telling the truth to our leadership at the IRS, internal agency watchdogs, and eventually Congress is our sworn duty — something we must do, not just something we are allowed to do.

However, in practice, the system has instinctively acted to protect itself.

When we came forward, attorneys for Hunter Biden launched a relentless campaign of false accusations, urging his father’s Justice Department to investigate and prosecute us for allegedly violating taxpayer privacy laws, despite the fact that such disclosures are expressly authorized by that same law.

When their efforts failed, they filed a civil suit against the IRS.

This lawsuit contains baseless claims about us with no legal or factual support.

In a normal situation, the government would move to dismiss such a frivolous suit, and we could rely on Justice Department attorneys to vigorously defend the interests of the IRS and agents like us.

However, this case is anything but normal. The government only sought to dismiss some claims and failed to adequately explain to the court that all our disclosures are explicitly authorized and protected by statute.

Given that we are not officially named as parties, we have had to wait on the sidelines for the same Justice Department and IRS that we blew the whistle on to fully defend our actions in court, which has not happened.

Therefore, we are seeking to join the case.

While this may seem unusual, it is a necessary step to ensure a fair defense of our actions.

Both sides oppose allowing us to be heard in court, but denying us the opportunity to defend our actions would be fundamentally unfair.

We need the chance to make key arguments to protect ourselves from real harm to our careers.

Without insiders like us willing to report wrongdoing, it will be difficult to hold the government accountable.